


A Brief Moment

by ErosRose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, romione
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21536734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErosRose/pseuds/ErosRose
Summary: ‘It’s complicated.’ Hermione said quietly.Ginny’s laugh barked from her mouth.‘Just grab the daft pillock by the scruff of his shirt and give him a good snog, Hermione. I don’t think it’ll be all that complicated after that.’Hermione narrowed her eyes at the smiling ginger girl. Her face held a familiar mischievous look, like one she had seen on her brother many times before throughout the years.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 4
Kudos: 75





	A Brief Moment

The train carriages pushed and pulled around the bends of the Northern landscape, a bushy haired, bright young woman wrought together her hands in nervous anticipation. She gnawed and nibbled on the soft skin of her bottom lip and the swell of the fear of not knowing lay heavily in her chest.

‘Hermione,’ an exasperated young ginger girl sighed, ‘he’s going to be there.’

Ginny placed her head against the cool window pane. Lambs, horses and calfs flew past her in fast blinks as the old steam train picked up speed through the vast green scenery. The two girls were halfway home and for good this time. Their time at Hogwarts had officially ended and this was their last train journey home from the magnificent Scottish castle, a place that they had called a home away from home for so many years. 

‘What?’ Hermione startled at Ginny’s words. 

‘Ron.’ She said, ‘Of course he’s going to be there.’

Hermione huffed in defiance.

‘Gin, I-’ she began, however what the intended end to the sentence was she wasn’t quite sure. 

‘He’ll be waiting for you.’ Ginny rolled her eyes. ‘Like he always is. Why can’t you two just figure it all out?’

Hermione cheeks flushed, she would love to pretend that she had no idea what Ginny was implying but she had to agree that it was getting quite ridiculous. All the pussyfooting around each other during the holidays, the coy looks and shy smiles, the gifts that were almost too meaningful - a personalised diary with her initials embossed in golden script and a Chudley Cannons poster, signed by the whole team, as a favour for the girl who helped to save the Wizarding World. 

‘It’s complicated.’ Hermione said quietly. 

Ginny’s laugh barked from her mouth.

‘Just grab the daft pillock by the scruff of his shirt and give him a good snog, Hermione. I don’t think it’ll be all that complicated after that.’

Hermione narrowed her eyes at the smiling ginger girl. Her face held a familiar mischievous look, like one she had seen on her brother many times before throughout the years. Hermione took in a sharp breath through her nose, rolled her shoulders and straightened her back. 

‘If anything were to happen Gin, then he would have to make the first move.’ She said with finality in her voice. ‘I can’t put myself out there with him again.’

She thought back to the Yule Ball and how she had secretly waited for as long as she could for him to show just a little bit of interest in her. When Victor approached her the week before the ball and asked her to accompany him she could hardly refuse, there was no sign that anyone else was willing to ask her anytime soon. She also thought back to Slughorn’s Party and what a disaster that had turned in to, she just couldn’t face that kind of heartache again.

The summer before Hermione and Ginny came back to Hogwarts, the summer immediately after the war, she had toyed with the idea of making her feelings known to Ron. However, grief took precedence over love and the more time she had to think, the more conclusions and scenarios she drew. 

Perhaps the feelings she had for Ron were simply heightened due to her own grief or the sense of relief she had from surviving the war, or perhaps she only felt this way due to the amount of time they spent together day in and day out. Would she still love him if they didn’t spend every day together like they had done for the past eight years?

The answer was yes. 

Perhaps she loved him even more so than when she left for Hogwarts. The constant ache in her chest every day that she was away from him, a pain that only subsided when in his presence confirmed this. If he was at the train station, waiting for her, surely that had to mean something didn’t it? She needed it to mean something but most of all she needed him to tell her that.

\---

‘Mate, what do you think is gonna happen?’ Harry smirked. ‘The train just isn’t going to turn up?’

Ron rolled on the balls of his feet, his hands shoved deep down into his trouser pockets that hid his nails that had been bitten down in nervous worry. A deep flush ran down the back of his neck and behind his ears, he knew he was being ridiculous by straining his neck down the platform in search of a train that he knew was only due to appear in the next fifteen minutes. 

His emotions swirled together in the pit of his stomach, nervous, excited and shitting himself all at once. She was going to be back for good, he could see her everyday if he wanted to - well if she wanted to. 

Would she be happy to see him? 

Or confused? 

Would she even care?

‘Shut up.’ Ron muttered ‘Prat.’

Harry was loving this, he could tell. The smugness rolled from his smile as he watched his best friend shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other, his neck constantly snapping to the large black clock that counted down the minutes. 

He wasn’t arsed anymore, he knew it was obvious to everyone - the way he looked at her on Christmas morning as they opened presents or how he followed her from room to room at the Burrow for the entire week, just needing to soak up as much time as he could with her over the holidays. He was so hopelessly in love with her that it ached in his heart and consumed him daily. 

‘You going to say something to her?’ Harry asked, a sincerity in his voice.

For all of his teasing over the past few years, he honestly just wanted to knock their heads together and tell them to get a move on. 

‘I don’t know.’ Ron replied honestly. 

It wasn’t the first time Ron had admitted to Harry how he felt, that had come shortly after the girls had left for school, hours after they had waved them off on the old steam train for their final year. He had found Ron sitting at the dining table in Grimmauld Place, his chin resting on his knuckles and his expression blank. 

‘I love her.’ He said as though the realisation had only just dawned on him.

Harry had given him the same sad smile he was giving him now and asked the same question. 

The whistle of the train howled in the distance, Ron inhaled deeply.

\---

The train came to a steady stop and at once the carriage aisles filled with the bustle of Hogwarts students of various years, ages and sizes. There was a flurry of voices and laughter, children saying goodbye to their school friends until September rolled around again, solemn Seventh Years bid farewell to the train itself that had taken them to and forth the castle where they had spent some of the best and worst times of the young life. 

Hermione and Ginny moved slowly, gathering their trunks from the racking above them for the last time. Each movement was meaningful as they took in their surroundings, feeling nostalgic for a life they had both lived. Hermione wouldn’t deny that she may have also been trying to delay the inevitable. 

He would either be there or he would not. She was finding it almost impossible to contain her emotions, preemptive tears glistened in her eyes as she reached for the sliding carriage door and made her way out into the busy aisle. 

\---

It suddenly dawned on Ron how thankful he was for his height as he watched as Harry struggled to crane his neck over the swell of students that had swarmed onto the platform. Ron could easily see above their heads, what he couldn’t see however was the two heads he was looking for, the fiery long hair of sister and his favourite set of chocolate curls that undoubtedly belonged to Hermione Granger. 

‘Where is she, where is she?’ He muttered to himself. 

He started to push through the crowd, he glided easily as though he was wading through water. He wasn’t sure what he would do or say when he saw her, he just hoped that when he saw her he would know. 

‘Ron!’ Harry called from behind him, lost in the crowd of people that were eyeing him with awe and admiration. ‘They’re over there!’

Harry was pointing to the far end of the train, he saw his sister first who was eagerly scanning the crowd in search of The Boy Who Lived. Then there she was, her head bent down slightly and focused more on navigating her trunk down to the train platform. It was only when Ginny grabbed at her arm and pointed in his direction that she looked up.

\---

‘There!’ Ginny smiled and darted off into the crowd, abandoning her trunk in favour of reaching her boyfriend.

Looking up Hermione’s watering eyes met with that of smiling - no beaming, Ronald Weasley. She matched his smile and let out a gasp of a laugh. What had she been so worried about, of course he was going to be here, he always would be. 

Hermione joined Ginny in abandoning her trunk and started to make way through the crowd.

\---

Ron picked up his pace as he noticed Hermione had started to move in his direction, he pushed aside what had been this year's First Years and ignored the whispers of recognition for who he was. He didn’t care, he couldn’t care. All that mattered right now was that Hermione was making her way to him and he was mad with happiness. 

Once within a couple of feet of each other they stopped, hesitantly.

‘Hi.’ Hermione sighed with relief.

‘Hi.’ Ron echoed.

They both stared at each other, beaming smiles subsiding to something gentler, a look of hope and longing laced with uncertainty and fear of all the things they had never said to each other. 

Hermione opened her mouth, wanting to say something but the words wouldn’t come. Ron’s words however, did.

‘I’ve missed you.’ He confessed. ‘More than what’s probably normal to miss someone who-’ 

‘Isn’t your girlfriend.’ Is what he wanted to say but the words fell short and he fell silent. 

‘I’ve missed you too.’ Hermione whispered. ‘A lot.’

The tears that had been gathering in Hermione’s eyes were now dangerously threatening to spill down her cheeks, she was relieved of course that he was here but for some reason the ache in her stomach had only gotten worse. 

At the tears in her eyes a concerned Ron pulled her at her arm and tucked her into a hug.

‘C’mere,’ he whispered into her hair with a slight laugh, ‘you alright? I wasn’t that bad of a surprise to see was I?’ He joked.

Hermione shook her head and buried deeper into his chest, the tears were starting to spill now and she didn’t want anybody seeing her cry on Platform 9 ¾.

‘No,’ came a muffled reply, ‘you were a brilliant surprise.’

She sniffled and pulled her head away from him, quickly pulling up her hands to wipe away the stray tears. Her cheeks were flushed red from the embarrassment of crying in public and the mixture of emotions that swelled through her body.

Ron looked down at her, from this close he could count the freckles that sat on her nose. Her doe like eyes glanced back up at him, the gentle gaze in them sent a hot flush down his neck that he was sure she would be able to see. His tongue swept over his own lips before her name fell from them.

‘’Mione.’ His throat was hoarse all of sudden like everything deep down inside of him had bubbled up and left a knot right in his throat. 

The breath from him saying her name danced over the apples of her cheeks, his face was serious now. An expression she had never really seen on his face before, and it was a face that she had studied relentlessly throughout school, even more so than she had Hogwarts: A History. 

His adam’s apple bobbed tellingly in his throat. 

Word’s just wouldn’t do now, how could eight years of growing friendship and love and sometimes heartache be summed up with any combination of words. 

Ron’s head dipped, slowly and cautiously, as Hermione’s head tilted upwards with that same timid speed. 

And for a moment there was no crowd bustling past them, and there was no steam train whistling or groaning, in fact Platform 9 ¾ ceased to exist altogether for one brief shining moment as their lips touched for the very first time.


End file.
